Tequila
by AlinaLotus
Summary: Their love was doomed from the first bittersweet drop.


_Warnings: AU, character death. Oh, and that magical thing we call forbidden love._

**My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown and known too late. Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I should love a loathed enemy.**

**-William S. Shakespeare**

Ginny sat at her desk in her old room at the Burrow, late into the night. The parchment and quill in front of her lay quite idle, though the red-head's mind was spilling over with thought. There was a soft knock at the door, and Harry entered, looking extremely haggard.

"What you doin up so late?" He asked, sitting on the corner of her desk, although he knew it was a stupid question. Two funerals in a week? Who in this house would be able to sleep?

"Thinking..." Ginny mumbled, fingering the quill in front of her.

"About?" Harry ventured, gently covering her hand with his.

"Their story...I think the world should know, Harry."

Harry's eyebrows lifted. "Know what? Three people killed themselves, Gin! The world does know!" He cried, jumping off the desk.

"Whoa, calm down Harry! I just meant-" Ginny began, also standing up.

"Calm down? I lost two best friends, Ginny! Two people who meant the world to me, and for what? Some fucker who couldn't keep it in his pants?" Harry yelled, slamming his fist down on the desk.

"News flash Harry, I lost the same people you did! And it wasn't because Draco couldn't control himself, it was because of love, Harry. And that's what the world should know...not that three people killed themselves, because three people died for love."

Harry snorted. "Love? You think killing yourself because you see no other way to be together is love?"

Ginny reached for the stack of parchment and quill. "Just because you don't give a shit about anyone doesn't mean what Hermione and Draco had wasn't love. Yes, your two best friends and arch enemy are all dead, but don't you dare degrade the reason as to why." She pushed past him, towards the door.

"What do you think you're going to do, Ginny? You think that telling everybody Hermione didn't love Ron is going to fix their deaths, make them okay?" Harry said, aware of the malice in his voice, knowing how horrible he was being to Ginny, but not actually caring.

Ginny turned slowly back to him, tears pouring down her freckled face. "I'll be downstairs." She whispered, then left the room.

"Let me get this straight," Tonks said, plopping down onto the armchair by the fire, where Ginny had been sitting for the past two hours, scratching the quill in her hand hard against the parchment, "You're writing the story of Hermione and Draco?"

Ginny looked up at the blue-haired witch and nodded. "That's right. The world should know what happened...it's only fair to them." And with that, Ginny bent her head down and continued writing, to the very end of each parchment, setting each carefully aside when she was finished with them.

_June 7 _

_I, Ginerva Weasley, hereby set the record straight. The following account is of love and death, and must be told to credit the memories of the deceased..._

It used to be odd to Hermione how she could feel so many things for Ronald at one time. So much love, such a constant flow of compassion, how she had spent her teenage years yearning for those lanky arms to hold her. And then, just like that, with the snap of fingers and a whiff of lime and tequila, her thoughts, desires, and even dreams were taken from Ron, stolen from her heart and invested into a completely different source.

Draco Malfoy.

One night was all it had taken, one drunken night of passion and lust. Passion, she had learned, was something Ron neither knew nor felt, at least not for or towards her, and she had taught herself to live without it. And then there was Draco, the epitimy of lust, his sapphire blue eyes, his long fingers that were so surprisingly warm and gentle...and just like tequila, just like it's shocking, stinging taste that ensares the senses and takes over the mind completely with just a single taste, Hermione was lost. Lost of reason, of doubts, of her inane ability to force logic through to even the most precarious moments.

She was lost to Draco Malfoy.

And then, suddenly, her heart wasn't Ron's anymore, and it most certainly wasn't her own. No matter how hard it was, how difficult it was for him, a very powerful force among Voldemort's ranks, indeed one of his most important henchmen, even at his tender age of twenty, the two managed to see eachother. Each moment they spent together, the pair knew, was so very precious, it was worth both their lives, for as an Unspeakable for the Ministry and a top-ranking Death Eater, if their love were ever discovered, both would be executed by their opposing leaders.

And yet with that morbid truth, the two couldn't have cared less. It mattered not that their mortality would end if they were discovered in eachother's arms. It was, in fact, the dearest desire of Draco and Hermione to let the world know of their love.

Of course, as in all love stories, heartbreak soon reigned among them. Draco had become so immersed in the Dark Lord's work, and Hermione so engrossed with helping Harry search for the remaining Horcruxes, not to mention that most of the work load of her department got dumped on her, being as brilliant as she was, that those few moments they once had together were reduced to hardley seconds. Both knew darkness then, felt the emptiness, and it was Draco who decided it was time. Time for he and his love, Hermione Jean Granger, to be together.

In any way possible.

Hermione had quite liked the idea; who had researched death more than an Unspeakable? The Afterlife was there, she had felt it, almost seen it. Her research was getting close, her department studied the Veil constantly, obsessively. She knew it would work, knew that they would at last be together, no more secrets, no more lies.

The two were found, their lifeless arms around eachother, their cold, dead fingers entwined, their wands lying beside them. No foul play was involved, as far as the Magical Law Enforcement Squad could tell. There was, however, a strong smell of lime and tequila around, and as the Squad waited for both parties loved ones to arrive on the scene, they deduced that the two had taken posion with their alcohol.

"Scandelous", a few had decided; "An outrage" most said, but as Harry and Ginny watched Ron break down at the sight of Hermione's dead body holding Malfoy's, green eyes met amber ones, and both murmered "Star crossed."

No one could have guessed that the two students, once Prefects, Head Boy and Girl, enemies, would have died like this, and most especially not with eachother. Not i because /i of eachother. It is said that in death, we are with those we once loved on Earth. Who knows if this is true or not, and who would be foolish enough to believe such a romantic thought?

Ron had to know, had to find out if he would ever see his dear Hermione again. Proving that a life devoid of love will eventually consume you, Ron decided to do that which was necessary to die. Life is an unkown thing, without love. It is, however, a known fact that Hermione Jean Granger and Draco Lucius Malfoy were buried side by side, their headstones merely inches apart. It is also a known fact that the cemetary that is as cold and dead as their lifeless bodies produces no beauitful things, no comforting scenes of flower beds and sprawling lawns, no green trees to admire under a clear blue sky. But since the burial of the two star crossed lovers, a solid vine of ivy surrounds the graves, an entwining circle that could be taken as symbol of eternity.

Some say it was Fate, others fools in love, but the truth is this: You cannot stop love. No matter how hard one tries to yield to it, to dissuade it, it will only pursue you faster, consume your heart and your whole being all the quicker. Your soul won't belong to you anymore, and truthfully it never did. Ronald says Hermione was his soul mate, that his heart was hers. But some bridges are crossed too late, and purposely so. Hermione's soul was never Ron's, no matter how much either of the two believed that.

Somewhere, in his blue eyes, in his icy exterior, Draco always held the key to Hermione's heart, held her very breath in his palm. And somewhere past the bushy hair, the books and eleven NEWTs, Hermione had the soft power to unlock Draco's own heart.

The two shared the most beautiful gift, secret, memory of all: True love.

Ginny set down her quill, and stacked the parchments in her arms, sealing them with a tap of her wand. Stretching her back, she headed back upstairs to her room, ready to send Pig straight to Luna. She'd already been in contact with Mr. Lovegood, who had assured her the public loved a tragic romance, and The Quibbler would of course be honored to print whatever she had written.

Once shut in her room, she tied the parchments to Pig's leg and sent him off out the window. Watching the owl slowly dissapear into the rising sun, Ginny wiped a solitary tear from her cheek.


End file.
